Ruins of Zion: Utah in Rifts Earth

[Molydeus]

Hi there, this is my first post here in a while, but hopefully not my last. Recent events have reinvigorated my love of the Rifts setting and I would like to do something with it, aside from just talking about it endlessly on the internet.

I'm likely going to run a Rifts game soon, and would like to set it in Utah -- or the area that was once Utah. No books I've read really detail that area. If you guys can give me a canon rundown of post-apocalypse Utah, or point me to some books that discuss the area, I would appreciate it. I plan on mining the New West and Spirit West sourcebooks, if I can snag copies for reasonably cheap.

I certainly don't mind making it up on my own, because I already have some ideas. But official material can't help but enrich the authenticity of my game. I'm particularly interested in human groups and D-Bees common to the area, or if there any Ley Lines that run through it.

And I'm also interested in your ideas. If you were going to run a Rifts game in Utah, what would you do with it? Because I don't mind stealing your ideas and giving myself credit for them.

Thanks for any and all responses!

[kaid]

I believe they do talk about it a bit in new west. I believe its pretty heavily irradiated area and where those weird mutant guys in new west come from that general area if I recall correctly.

[Nekira Sudacne]

There's also mentioned a King of Utah City in Rifts Mercenaries, although details are sparce at best.

[kaid]

In rifts aftermath they mention a city of wonder somewhere in utah but nobody knows if it exists of if it does where it is.

[Molydeus]

I appreciate the feedback and advice. It looks like I'm going to be mining New West and Spirit West for info, the making up the bulk of the information. Which is fine. I'll be sure to include the Xiticix and Native American peoples. I know enough about the Navajo and the Utes to portray them somewhat realistically.

There's nothing interesting at all about making Utah an irradiated wasteland. So what I'll do is make the Salt Lake Valley basin mysteriously free of radiation, though it's surrounded by a larger irradiated area full Xiticix, mutants and other threats. In this oasis, several groups of humans and D-Bees struggle to coexist, since it's not like it's easy to pick up your camp and move it 60 miles thataway. Open warfare between groups is uncommon, as is peace and harmony. The general situation is intense competition for resources and territory, with spates of guerrilla warfare and small-scale Cold War tactics. All the groups in the valley will unite against existential threats like Xiticix and other predators.

The humans in this area have developed in relative isolation, because the only safe way to get to the Valley from outside is flight or teleportation. Which might make things a little interesting on the tech side, because there's not going to be a lot of outside tech there. But I'm sure I can come up with a justification for special cases if I need to, such as if someone wants to play a Glitter Boy, Juicer or ex-CAS.

[glitterboy2098]

Xiticix might not be the best choice actually, since they're pretty limited in their range to that one section of Canada.

there should be other insectoid monsters you could use though.

[eliakon]

I appreciate the feedback and advice. It looks like I'm going to be mining New West and Spirit West for info, the making up the bulk of the information. Which is fine. I'll be sure to include the Xiticix and Native American peoples. I know enough about the Navajo and the Utes to portray them somewhat realistically.

There's nothing interesting at all about making Utah an irradiated wasteland. So what I'll do is make the Salt Lake Valley basin mysteriously free of radiation, though it's surrounded by a larger irradiated area full Xiticix, mutants and other threats. In this oasis, several groups of humans and D-Bees struggle to coexist, since it's not like it's easy to pick up your camp and move it 60 miles thataway. Open warfare between groups is uncommon, as is peace and harmony. The general situation is intense competition for resources and territory, with spates of guerrilla warfare and small-scale Cold War tactics. All the groups in the valley will unite against existential threats like Xiticix and other predators.

The humans in this area have developed in relative isolation, because the only safe way to get to the Valley from outside is flight or teleportation. Which might make things a little interesting on the tech side, because there's not going to be a lot of outside tech there. But I'm sure I can come up with a justification for special cases if I need to, such as if someone wants to play a Glitter Boy, Juicer or ex-CAS.

Fortunately the main targets in the Salt Lake area for nuking are the International Airport (home of air-refueling command), Dougway Proving Ground (Which is waayy out in the desert), and possibly Hill Air Force Base.

One or two smallish (and fairly clean) nukes the airport and airbase, and your would have a lot of the city survive...
...well until the earthquakes. Which would continently drop the tech level down to what ever level happens to be needed.

[glitterboy2098]

Dugway Proving Grounds is one of the big testing, and storage centers for Chemical and Biological weapons. who knows what exotic varieties of these it might have had in 2098? it's also has been named in the conspiracy theories about UFo's and salvaged Alien tech (basically some people claim that after Area51 got famous, the alien tech research got moved to Dugway.. weird)

Deseret Chemical Depot is THE big storage and disposal sight for the same kinds of agents.

it could be the events of the cataclysm wound up spreading various long term persistent chemical or biological agents into pockets around the state? which gave rise to the rumors of it being a blasted wasteland?

[FluidicAztec]

Instead of Xiticix I would go with Black Wing Monster Men (Spirit West I think).

[Shark_Force]

or the mutants in orbit mutant insects from mars. they're not xiticix-level of dangerous, but they're dangerous enough.

[dpenwood]

Hi there, this is my first post here in a while, but hopefully not my last. Recent events have reinvigorated my love of the Rifts setting and I would like to do something with it, aside from just talking about it endlessly on the internet.

I'm likely going to run a Rifts game soon, and would like to set it in Utah -- or the area that was once Utah. No books I've read really detail that area. If you guys can give me a canon rundown of post-apocalypse Utah, or point me to some books that discuss the area, I would appreciate it. I plan on mining the New West and Spirit West sourcebooks, if I can snag copies for reasonably cheap.

I certainly don't mind making it up on my own, because I already have some ideas. But official material can't help but enrich the authenticity of my game. I'm particularly interested in human groups and D-Bees common to the area, or if there any Ley Lines that run through it.

And I'm also interested in your ideas. If you were going to run a Rifts game in Utah, what would you do with it? Because I don't mind stealing your ideas and giving myself credit for them.

Thanks for any and all responses!

I'm from New England so I don't live anywhere near Utah, but I've visited it several times. Utah is a beautiful state and it inspired me to include part of my campaign in that part of the country. I did this in two ways:

First, and more straightforward, I had my players searching for the legendary Naruni Cache... which, it turns out, is in the remains of Arches National Park. Arches make great Rifts, btw.

Next, and a bit more complicated... there are cities in Utah that have biblical names that can also be found in the middle east. The players found the remains of a dead archaeologist in the deserts of Utah who possessed a map to an ancient pre-Rifts artifact. He had tried to followed a map using the pre-Rifts cities shown, which he inaccurately assumed were in Utah... but the cities are actually in the middle east. The map was to lead to the Ark of the Covenant, which is actually an advanced alien D-Bee device. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the players to bite and follow this thread. (This was meant to be a light-hearted sub-plot of the campaign, and not meant to diss anyone's religion, btw).

[kaid]

I appreciate the feedback and advice. It looks like I'm going to be mining New West and Spirit West for info, the making up the bulk of the information. Which is fine. I'll be sure to include the Xiticix and Native American peoples. I know enough about the Navajo and the Utes to portray them somewhat realistically.

There's nothing interesting at all about making Utah an irradiated wasteland. So what I'll do is make the Salt Lake Valley basin mysteriously free of radiation, though it's surrounded by a larger irradiated area full Xiticix, mutants and other threats. In this oasis, several groups of humans and D-Bees struggle to coexist, since it's not like it's easy to pick up your camp and move it 60 miles thataway. Open warfare between groups is uncommon, as is peace and harmony. The general situation is intense competition for resources and territory, with spates of guerrilla warfare and small-scale Cold War tactics. All the groups in the valley will unite against existential threats like Xiticix and other predators.

The humans in this area have developed in relative isolation, because the only safe way to get to the Valley from outside is flight or teleportation. Which might make things a little interesting on the tech side, because there's not going to be a lot of outside tech there. But I'm sure I can come up with a justification for special cases if I need to, such as if someone wants to play a Glitter Boy, Juicer or ex-CAS.

Fortunately the main targets in the Salt Lake area for nuking are the International Airport (home of air-refueling command), Dougway Proving Ground (Which is waayy out in the desert), and possibly Hill Air Force Base.



One or two smallish (and fairly clean) nukes the airport and airbase, and your would have a lot of the city survive...
...well until the earthquakes. Which would continently drop the tech level down to what ever level happens to be needed.

Plus side with it being relatively close to the yellow stone super volcano explosion should be a pretty good cap of 80-100 feet of ash between a lot of the radiation and the surface.

[glitterboy2098]

Plus side with it being relatively close to the yellow stone super volcano explosion should be a pretty good cap of 80-100 feet of ash between a lot of the radiation and the surface.

actually, given the prevailing wind patterns at both low and high altitudes, that ash would mostly be falling east of the Yellowstone region.

the situation is pretty much the same as with fallout in a nuclear war, and the USA spent a lot of time study wind patterns to predict where Fallout would spread. for example, one of the maps provided in Civil Defense preparation packets: Simplified Fallout Patterns

Utah would mostly be getting ash from the Pacific Rim Volcano's in the Cascades, and those would be quiote a ways away so the ash that was falling would be lower in quantity and much lighter in composition. the kind of ash that erodes fairly quickly under the effect of wind and water. in fact, given the cataclysm was also a time of intense storms, it is likely that while some areas may be under a layer of Andisol (likely with heavy vegetative growth over it
), other areas would likely be fairly free of Ash related layers. further, since the wind and rain during the catclysm, and then 300 years of erosive action will have mixed the layers up by a fair amount, you cannot really claim that all the dangerous stuff will be "safely" buried underground. (and even if it was buried completely, it is likely to leech our of the soil and rock into the water table, creating a serious hazard at springs and wells, which would spread to streams and rivers as the water from springs mingles with surface rainwater.)

[kaid]

Actually looking at historical records pretty much all of utah is very much in direct cross hairs of a yellowstone super eruption. Northern Utah looks like in the actual direct kill zone blast radius of the volcano meaning if you are there the blast itself would be enough to kill. The rest of the state is in the hot ash zone so large ash depths and hot damaging ash. It is pretty scary if you look at maps of super volcanos like yellowstone because if that sucker ever goes off our country is done. Pretty much all the plains states and south west southern west coast would be under feet of ash at best and most of our bread basket of our country would be under tens of feet of ash. Also one thing to note ash and if it washes off depends a bit on the type of ash. Some volcanic ash when subjected to rain largely turns into something like cement especially if the layers are dense enough.

[Library Ogre]

USGS on Yellowstone Eruption.

SLC might have up to a meter of ash dropped on it; all of Utah will get at least 30 mm.

[kaid]

One interesting thing to note due to the size and power of the super volcanos their ash foot print is a lot different than normal volcanos throwing a lot more of their ash upwind probably because its getting to high enough altitude with more power to force it into different wind bands than normal volcanos can reach.

[eliakon]

One thing to remember here is that even though supposedly all the volcano's erupted...
... the planet was NOT covered meters deep in ash, all life was not wiped out, and all the other expected 'real' consequences of these sorts of events don't seem to have occurred.
Which means we can probably be forgiven if we are charitable with the interpretations of what happens here.
Possibly the Yellowstone eruption was not as powerful as it could have been since maybe the Flagstaff Volcano tapped the magma vent some how (since there isn't a magma plume there anymore in fact as I understand it continental drift has that volcano BE the same plume that is under Yellowstone right now!)

Rift events could have easily distributed ash differently. A major rift could accidentally rift ash clouds to another world, shielding portions of the earth, possibly even moving portions of the volcanic blast itself (maybe the two volcano's are rift linked below the surface...)

And of course there is the same effect that has raised the ocean levels in some places... yet not flooded the swamps.

[Library Ogre]

Eventually, though, Eli, you can equally say "There is no Utah; it was lost in the COR"

[kaid]

One thing to remember here is that even though supposedly all the volcano's erupted...
... the planet was NOT covered meters deep in ash, all life was not wiped out, and all the other expected 'real' consequences of these sorts of events don't seem to have occurred.
Which means we can probably be forgiven if we are charitable with the interpretations of what happens here.
Possibly the Yellowstone eruption was not as powerful as it could have been since maybe the Flagstaff Volcano tapped the magma vent some how (since there isn't a magma plume there anymore in fact as I understand it continental drift has that volcano BE the same plume that is under Yellowstone right now!)

Rift events could have easily distributed ash differently. A major rift could accidentally rift ash clouds to another world, shielding portions of the earth, possibly even moving portions of the volcanic blast itself (maybe the two volcano's are rift linked below the surface...)

And of course there is the same effect that has raised the ocean levels in some places... yet not flooded the swamps.

Hard to say but life on the plains could very well have been mostly wiped out certainly the human population was or close to it. There were at least 300 years after the cataclysm before 1 PA and ash while super destructive initially often makes for lush fertalizer long term. Plants/animals would recolonize soon enough and with rifts dumping alien plants/animals directly into affected areas its hard to say how long it would even take. Even a couple hundred years may be enough that unless you are digging into the ground or know the signs may not realize the level of devastation that struck that area.

[eliakon]

Eventually, though, Eli, you can equally say "There is no Utah; it was lost in the COR"

Well since the OP is setting up a game based in the ruins of the cities of Utah I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that utterly destroying the area is Not An Option.

For other games destroy what you want to destroy, save what you want to save... Its your Apocalypse and you can, and should! End the world on your terms.

[acreRake]

or the mutants in orbit mutant insects from mars. they're not xiticix-level of dangerous, but they're dangerous enough.

It wouldn't be Rifts if it wasn't bees, düde.

Personally, I'd have lake Bonneville fill up again (at least partially) ala Folk of the Fringe. In fact, I'd use most of that book for inspiration. Of course I love weird references so I'd probably also throw in some Canticle for Leibowitz stuff too. (Wasn't some of The Postman in UT also?)

[Richardson]

Rift events could have easily distributed ash differently. A major rift could accidentally rift ash clouds to another world, shielding portions of the earth, possibly even moving portions of the volcanic blast itself (maybe the two volcano's are rift linked below the surface...).

Russia. They had a decades long radioactive ash storm that rambled across the breadth of that continent leaving vast swathes in darkness for years at a time and firmly in the grips of winter without spring. Darn near killed everyone and everything after you factor in the massive demon invasion waves as well.

I would recommend for Utah throwing in lots of elementals rather than irradiated badlands after 300 years. The ppe release on top of the "nature" tie in would likely encourage tons of elementals to chill there along with kochina spirits and such once the wilderness had (rapidly) recovered. Given that ley lines are supposed to follow unseen but natural tracks of power some form of Nexus is likely near or at the place where the main volcano erupted. Possibly even powerful enough for a millennium tree to take seed there.

[Molydeus]

Eventually, though, Eli, you can equally say "There is no Utah; it was lost in the COR"

Well since the OP is setting up a game based in the ruins of the cities of Utah I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that utterly destroying the area is Not An Option.

For other games destroy what you want to destroy, save what you want to save... Its your Apocalypse and you can, and should! End the world on your terms.

Well, yeah. Kinda was hoping maybe to go with an interpretation that was more fun than broken lifeless radioactive ash-covered wasteland. I mean, Rifts has always been about the realism, and I want to explore the volcanism angle and the others things that can/did happen. The apocalypse ain't pretty. But if there aren't people, animals, creatures, life... I mean ****, why bother?
----------

also?)[/quote]

I would recommend for Utah throwing in lots of elementals rather than irradiated badlands after 300 years. The ppe release on top of the "nature" tie in would likely encourage tons of elementals to chill there along with kochina spirits and such once the wilderness had (rapidly) recovered. Given that ley lines are supposed to follow unseen but natural tracks of power some form of Nexus is likely near or at the place where the main volcano erupted. Possibly even powerful enough for a millennium tree to take seed there.

Now that's a thought. Plus acreRake's mutant bees, as well.

[glitterboy2098]

Rift events could have easily distributed ash differently. A major rift could accidentally rift ash clouds to another world, shielding portions of the earth, possibly even moving portions of the volcanic blast itself (maybe the two volcano's are rift linked below the surface...).

Russia. They had a decades long radioactive ash storm that rambled across the breadth of that continent leaving vast swathes in darkness for years at a time and firmly in the grips of winter without spring. Darn near killed everyone and everything after you factor in the massive demon invasion waves as well.

actually it wasn't an ash storm. it was a 80 year "little ice age". where the summers were too cold and short for good agriculture and Snow tended to happen year round. which given that it only takes one or two volcano's to bring on reduced temps around the globe for a few years, with so many volcano's going off during the cataclysm, a 80 year mini-ice age around the whole globe would be almost certain.

WB17, Pg 13:
"For nearly a century after the Great Cataclysm, Russia remained a frozen, snow covered, no-man's land. The trigger that
caused the eruption of the ley lines occurred around Christmas time, and winters are always harsh in Russia. When the first
spring of the new ice age came, the snow continued to fall. Summer never came and autumn brought more snow"

WB17, Pg14:
"Those who made it to Mongolia found unseasonably cold and harsh weather there too, although not as bad as Russia."

Wb17, pg14:
"Nobody has ever been able to determine the cause for the decades of winters. Some blamed it on "nuclear winter," and the many craters and spent nuclear missile silos at Soviet Military bases would seem to support that theory. Others blamed it on magic, demons or strange dimensional energies. There are a number of theories, but nobody honestly knows."

[eliakon]

Eventually, though, Eli, you can equally say "There is no Utah; it was lost in the COR"

Well since the OP is setting up a game based in the ruins of the cities of Utah I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that utterly destroying the area is Not An Option.

For other games destroy what you want to destroy, save what you want to save... Its your Apocalypse and you can, and should! End the world on your terms.

Well, yeah. Kinda was hoping maybe to go with an interpretation that was more fun than broken lifeless radioactive ash-covered wasteland. I mean, Rifts has always been about the realism, and I want to explore the volcanism angle and the others things that can/did happen. The apocalypse ain't pretty. But if there aren't people, animals, creatures, life... I mean ****, why bother?
----------

I would recommend for Utah throwing in lots of elementals rather than irradiated badlands after 300 years. The ppe release on top of the "nature" tie in would likely encourage tons of elementals to chill there along with kochina spirits and such once the wilderness had (rapidly) recovered. Given that ley lines are supposed to follow unseen but natural tracks of power some form of Nexus is likely near or at the place where the main volcano erupted. Possibly even powerful enough for a millennium tree to take seed there.

Now that's a thought. Plus acreRake's mutant bees, as well.

Great...
...Now I am going to have to put a 50' radioactive brine shrimp Kaiju in my Utah.

Though if I was going to be 'Rifty' for my mutant insects I would take the beetles from Mars. Why? Because they make wonderful crickets and since there is that whole plague of crickets thing going with the history of the state, and since everywhere else seems to relive their mythologies, stereotypes, legends and tall tales, then gosh darn it, to heck with it! Utah can too!

[Zer0 Kay]

I appreciate the feedback and advice. It looks like I'm going to be mining New West and Spirit West for info, the making up the bulk of the information. Which is fine. I'll be sure to include the Xiticix and Native American peoples. I know enough about the Navajo and the Utes to portray them somewhat realistically.

There's nothing interesting at all about making Utah an irradiated wasteland. So what I'll do is make the Salt Lake Valley basin mysteriously free of radiation, though it's surrounded by a larger irradiated area full Xiticix, mutants and other threats. In this oasis, several groups of humans and D-Bees struggle to coexist, since it's not like it's easy to pick up your camp and move it 60 miles thataway. Open warfare between groups is uncommon, as is peace and harmony. The general situation is intense competition for resources and territory, with spates of guerrilla warfare and small-scale Cold War tactics. All the groups in the valley will unite against existential threats like Xiticix and other predators.

The humans in this area have developed in relative isolation, because the only safe way to get to the Valley from outside is flight or teleportation. Which might make things a little interesting on the tech side, because there's not going to be a lot of outside tech there. But I'm sure I can come up with a justification for special cases if I need to, such as if someone wants to play a Glitter Boy, Juicer or ex-CAS.

I think Fell was writing something up on the city of wonder. Was kind of gruesome.

[Zer0 Kay]

Xiticix might not be the best choice actually, since they're pretty limited in their range to that one section of Canada.

there should be other insectoid monsters you could use though.

Crag leapers from one of the New West Trilogy books

[Zer0 Kay]

Dugway Proving Grounds is one of the big testing, and storage centers for Chemical and Biological weapons. who knows what exotic varieties of these it might have had in 2098? it's also has been named in the conspiracy theories about UFo's and salvaged Alien tech (basically some people claim that after Area51 got famous, the alien tech research got moved to Dugway.. weird)

Deseret Chemical Depot is THE big storage and disposal sight for the same kinds of agents.

it could be the events of the cataclysm wound up spreading various long term persistent chemical or biological agents into pockets around the state? which gave rise to the rumors of it being a blasted wasteland?

Pffth the aliens got moved to white sands

[Zer0 Kay]

One interesting thing to note due to the size and power of the super volcanos their ash foot print is a lot different than normal volcanos throwing a lot more of their ash upwind probably because its getting to high enough altitude with more power to force it into different wind bands than normal volcanos can reach.

Which would spread it further, faster making the entirety if its ash cover a much larger area with about the same density while smaller volcanoes would have a much smaller coverage. Now the land mass that'd blow would probably drop much closer. So maybe though not covered in miles of ash SLC was like bombarded by large chunks of Earth.

[acreRake]

I was looking at Spirit West yesterday and can't help but think that Utah can be little more than a spirit haunted wasteland. Sure there are nomads (Simvan, Native Americans etc...) and probably some scattered hard-scrabble towns...

[comedy]If it was me, i would probably make the city (of Wonder, is it?) an inversion of the Psyscape/Brigadoon trope(?) and make it really easy to find, but actually impossible to interact with. Like, it's just made of light, no matter, no sound, no... adventure... i guess...[/comedy]

*sigh*

[Molydeus]

I was looking at Spirit West yesterday and can't help but think that Utah can be little more than a spirit haunted wasteland. Sure there are nomads (Simvan, Native Americans etc...) and probably some scattered hard-scrabble towns...

If it was me, i would probably make the city (of Wonder, is it?) an inversion of the Psyscape/Brigadoon trope(?) and make it really easy to find, but actually impossible to interact with. Like, it's just made of light, no matter, no sound, no... adventure... i guess...

Yeah. That sounds like a plan.

Players: "We've arrived! So... what do we do here?"
GM (me): "Nothing. There's nothing to do. It's a spirit-haunted wasteland. And the city, it's just light. You can't interact with it."
Player: "...oh. Awesome. You suck. Let's play something else now."

This thread has pretty much killed my enthusiasm for a Utah-based Rifts game. I'll scout other locations for my campaign.

[eliakon]

The City of Light is Las Vegas though isn't it?
Utah has pretty much no canon information about it at all.
Which is why you can do weird stuff with it. I put a walking city made out of bones wandering the Salt Flats in one of my versions because the thought of a necromantic animation a that has a size measured in acres was amusing. It freaked the heck out of the players though and most of the groups decided to avoid it for some reason.

[Molydeus]

Aw gee, they wouldn't go near it? Where's their sense of adventure, where is their excitement to meet new people and... things? A city of animated bone, what's the worst that can happen?

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

At the risk of causing butthurt or breaking some forum rule...
as long as your players are cool with it take stereotypical things from the area or Utah History/Mythology and make your game off of that.

The players find a lost civilization of Golden Age Mormons..turns out that magic underwear really worked. Or maybe it didn't and the players have instead gotten wind of a hidden temple filled with gold and priceless artifacts.

A plauge of GIANT locusts are decimating the landscape in a path that is miles wide.
The swarm is so huge that it blocks out the sun and causes dust storms from the beat of their wings. The players are contracted to defend the city (which is right in the path of the monsters) and if they are successful to scout out and destroy the hive.

Now there REALLY IS a monster in Bear Lake and since the CotR it has become a bottomless abyss (rift in the bottom to a dimension of water?)

Or make a game off of these

Just don't let other peoples opinions keep you from doing something that you want to.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. So, this thread has made me curious, with all the talk of the ash from the volcanoes ... do you think a group of warlocks could protect at least a small sized village and keep it thriving (or at least surviving? I'm thinking one of those scenes were it's this apocalyptic wasteland, and then suddenly there's fields of green and a city where all logic says there should be none.

There are spells such as Create Water (Water), Atmospheric Manipulation (Air), and Grow Plants (Earth). Yes, those are three different elements, and a couple of those are higher level spells. Since this is also what brought magic back to the world, it's doubtful they'd be that high level, but either through suspension of belief, or a result of summoning an Elemental (which can, in theory, be done at first level) that was able to cast these spells for them. Atmospheric Manipulation can clear away clouds and change temperatures. If Elemental Magic wouldn't be enough, is there magic that could make this work?

I have no intention of running a Rifts game, so this doesn't help me personally. This was more just a thought exercise to see how magic might alter things. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

[Molydeus]

At the risk of causing butthurt or breaking some forum rule...
as long as your players are cool with it take stereotypical things from the area or Utah History/Mythology and make your game off of that.

The players find a lost civilization of Golden Age Mormons..turns out that magic underwear really worked. Or maybe it didn't and the players have instead gotten wind of a hidden temple filled with gold and priceless artifacts.

A plauge of GIANT locusts are decimating the landscape in a path that is miles wide.
The swarm is so huge that it blocks out the sun and causes dust storms from the beat of their wings. The players are contracted to defend the city (which is right in the path of the monsters) and if they are successful to scout out and destroy the hive.

Now there REALLY IS a monster in Bear Lake and since the CotR it has become a bottomless abyss (rift in the bottom to a dimension of water?)

Or make a game off of these

These are some good ideas, here. I appreciate your reply. And while my own intent is not to step on toes, religion is not a topic I'm afraid of. It would be interesting to explore exactly what Mormons (or Catholicism or Islam) would be like several centuries from now, what with the rifts and supertech and D-Bees running around. I think other faiths would evolve in interesting ways as well. I certainly wouldn't push that sort of game, but if the players want to, I'm quite willing to explore it. Theology has always fascinated me, and it's surprising how little Palladium has done with the idea. Aside from appropriating so-called "pagan" religions rather carelessly. But I think religion in Rifts would be worth a topic of its own, so I won't go into it much here.

Just don't let other peoples opinions keep you from doing something that you want to.

Thanks for this. The pep talk helps. I admit I got frustrated there for a bit, but you and others do have some very gameable ideas.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

These are some good ideas, here. I appreciate your reply. Thanks for this. The pep talk helps. I admit I got frustrated there for a bit, but you and others do have some very gameable ideas.

Glad I could help.